Be Original, Be Honest

This month we feature a band that most of you normally wouldn’t stumbleupon, since our readers are from all over the globe. This month we shine a little light on a very talented group of Metal/Hardcore musicians that decided to focus primarily on the Belgian and Dutch market. They sing in their native tongue, just to stay true to themselves. We found them by chance, while they were giving a really kickass live performance. Their music is refreshing, heavy and makes you laugh if you can understand their lyrics, which are about everyday life. Reason enough for us to ask them a few questions and introduce a larger part of the metal world to the local phenomenon that is Fleddy Melculy.

Thank you for taking the time to talk to us! I stumbled upon your performance at this year's Graspop festival and i laughed my ass off. Your act is unique to say the least. For the ones that don't know you yet. Who is Fleddy Melculy?

Fleddy Melculy is just an average guy who stumbled upon the ghost of Dimebag who bewitched him and gave him superpowers to save the metal. This translates itself to some powerful metal and hardcore with dutch lyrics about important things in life, such as losing your keys, eating bread...

The smile started for me reading your name in the program. Why did you choose this name?

I stumbled upon this name a few years ago, thought it sounded funny and the minute you hear it you won’t forget it anymore

The first song i heard you play when i arrived at your show was Brood (bread). You immediately got my attention with that. What moved you to write a song that tells us you're hungry and you want bread?

I really don’t know…why do other bands sing about their rage, world problems or women?…In hardcore vocals are often hard to understand because of the screaming. In my opinion it doesn’t matter what you scream as long it sounds good, why not putting funny things into it. At first nobody notices… But the second they dig deeper they notice the funny element. That’s what I like about doing this band.

It didn't take long before i started seeing a few parallels with a band like tenacious d. You're a talented metal band with the power of comedy. Is that the super power granted to you by Dimebag's ghost?

I’m a big fan of the D. I already had the pleasure to see them live 3 times. I guess you can say that this superpower is exactly how you describe it hahaha.

For our readers, I'm of course referring to the intro called Dimebag on your EP Wat De Fok (What The Fuck in Dutch dialect), in which you mistake Dimebag's ghost for God after which he grants you super powers. In that intro it's started that things are not well in the metal world. What do you think is wrong?

Actually I don’t think there isn’t anything wrong with metal. It was a nice skit to properly introduce Fleddy to the world. I already had people saying ‘who does he think he is by saying that? Well…obviously it’s a joke BUT what I do think is that it is already a very long time ago that I heard a new (metal)band that grabbed me by the throat and surprised me with a new sound and inspiring riffs. I mean, when will we hear a new Pantera or Sepultura…There aren’t any bands anymore that reach that level…still there are very good (new) bands at this moment (Kvelertak for instance)

That wasn't the only celebrity cameo on your ep talking Dutch. Was that Stephen Hawking calling out to come dance in the mosh pit?

Yeah. I always wondered what that would look like when that guy would hit the moshpit

Your breakthrough single was a song about a johnny in a Metallica t-shirt. How do you come up with this stuff

I don’t think too much about all this. For instance, that song is about a real frustration of mine. I just don’t get why those shops sell those shirts, because the only people who buy those shirts in those shops don’t know anything about metal or rock music… So yeah, I don’t have to think too much about it.

You're a Belgian band. That makes the choice to sing in Dutch not that strange. Yet there aren't that many Dutch language metal bands out there. Why did you stick to your native tongue?

Simply because I want to be true and honest to myself. There are a lot of Belgian bands that choose to sing in English because ‘the opportunities to tour outside of Belgium’. Well honestly…fuck that! As if people are going to be interested in bad english with a french or a dutch accent. I’m not saying that all bands are like that. Hell no, there are also a lot of English singing belgian bands that I like but if you’re starting to pay attention to their language it is sometimes too funny…People also often choose to sing in English because that is easier than using the mother tongue, because that is way too ‘honest’. Or because it’s ‘cooler’. Again: fuck that. Be original, be honest, sing in the language that you speak everyday or hell, invent a language! That’s when you become interesting to me and get my attention. And after all… When you scream 100% of the time, 95% of the time your audience won’t even understand a simple fuck what you’re singing!

Will we ever hear you sing in English?

Except for an occasional cover, NEVER!

What can we expect from your upcoming full record Helgië?

17 tracks, awesome tunes about the biggest problems in life, great artwork with monsters and naked women… I had a lot of fun recording it, I hope the fans will enjoy it as much as I did while making it.

Did you ever find your keys by the way?

Yeah, I have about 100 spare keys now.

What can we expect from Fleddy Melculy in the near future. What's your year plan?

We have a big tour through Belgium and the Netherlands from september to december. In 2017 we will also be playing a lot of shows, hopefully also festivals… And I already started writing the next album.

Yeah, don’t drink and drive or drive and drink, but when you do drive drunk (with a Bob) do vomit with you window open, because when it’s closed all that vomit shit will straight go into that bakske onder uw window… And that’s fucking shitty to clean afterwards.